New York It was a different way to come into the big city. Beulah Laboistrie, a senior ACORN leader in New Orleans over the last more than 30 years, and I were bumped up to 1st class to LaGuardia. A driver was waiting for us downstairs with our names on a sign to take us to Muse, one of those hip Kimpton hotels all in black and white. Miss Beulah was given a suite, and it seemed right to hear a couple of oohhs and aahhhs. A car is going to pick us up at 12:45 to take us the couple of blocks to the Williams Club where the interview with us will take place in the library. A car picks us up at 2:30 PM and takes us back to LaGuardia and then we are off to New Orleans again.
Walking in the pre-dawn, not surprisingly, it turns out that the giant headquarters of the New Corporation is almost around the corner on Avenue of the Americas (6th). Across the street from them is the McGraw-Hill Corporation. Simon Schuster is in the next block. Broadway is behind us on 7th. Last night there were huge crowds milling disconnectedly in short pants and cameras, as we drove by.
There is way too much sugar in our coffee!
An email from home links to the another Fox News / Glenn Beck outrage around some minor health care event in Baton Rouge that he was trying to pump up into something or other. The note was cryptic and critical. The voting on this blog and Facebook for me agreeing to be interviewed about Citizen Wealth and ACORN history for this documentary was mixed about 50-50. Most of the voting was just voting, and on both sides of the balloting, I was given good advice and good luck. The home stand ballots were determinedly and stridently NO’s. No, don’t do it. No, this, no, that. The home votes were against me introducing the camera people to people in the lower 9th Ward, because it would be misinterpreted. The home votes were against me calling and recruiting my old friend and comrade, Ms. Laboistrie, to be with me on camera.
For every objection raised at home, I was able to work with the Fox field producer to structure a compromise that worked. It would include the book, as they had originally offered. I would answer no questions after 6/2/08 when I resigned about ACORN business, leaving current affairs appropriately to current management and leaders. They were interested in history. I would answer questions about ACORN history. I would only appear on camera if accompanied by ACORN or SEIU Local 100 members or leaders. To satisfy one of my home votes, I was able to get a promise that the footage would not be shared in such a way that it could be edited and clipped out of context elsewhere in the network. At the end of the day, life involves risks and there is no substitute for good judgment, so you straighten your back and walk through the door and take chances with the best odds available.
My only real trepidation came when they told me the interviewer would be Megyn Kelly. I had no idea who she was but watched one of her clips as she kept interrupting and talking over some Obama military guy during the 2008 campaign. Not pretty, but it was campaign time, and she didn’t owe the guy a layup, so maybe it was a fair play. That didn’t bother me. The fact that she was trained as a lawyer and had been a prosecutor, I also greeted as, “Oh, well.”
No, my only real reservation came when I realized after all of these years of living in scorpiana land, where despite my rationalist disdain for astrology, I had been schooled by the hard knocks to appreciate both the intense loyalty of scorpiana’s who surrounded me daily in every aspect of my personal and professional life, as well as real respect and awe for the quickness and fatality of their strike when crossed. These are the sweetest people in the world and they would do anything for you, but when crossed, your life is worthless. The only time I thought, “Whoa!” was when I noticed that Ms. Kelly’s was a scorpiana, too! And, moreover, her birthday was identical to the frequently voting and adamantly opposed, resounding NO vote on my own home front.
This den of Foxes better work out because if not there will be no peace for me in scorpiana land where memory is long and unforgiving, and life a daily reminder of the strength of the sign!